Anyone else here love point and click adventure games? I'm talking about the kind where you move around by pointing and clicking on the screen where you want to go. You usually solve puzzles as well.

One of my all-time favorites is Myst, which might be the most famous point-and-click game. I love all of the Myst games, although the second one, Riven, is in my opinion the best one and is in the running for my favorite game of all time.

Others I really enjoy are the Dark Fall series (specifically 1 and 2) and The Journeyman Project series.

The ones I'm describing are first-person point and click games, which are my favorite. There are also 3rd person point-and-click games such as Broken Sword, The Longest Journey, Sam & Max, Blade Runner, and recently Broken Age.

Anyone else love point and click games like I do? Probably my favorite genre.

Used to play them a lot, a lot less now. Mostly third-person though. Broken Sword, Monkey Island, mostly older games. As for more recent games, Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes series is not without its share of problems, but I do enjoy them. Oh, and not recent, but I did only get into Gabriel Knight one or two years ago, and quite liked them for their storytelling and atmosphere.

I do have a pet-peeve about people always calling _every_ Japanese adventure game visual novels. Most Japanese adventure games are actually variants of point and click adventures. People who have played games like Maniac Mansion should know the command menu right? With commands as "Use", "Talk", "Open" etcetera? When they made adventures for consoles (with controllers), they simply moved the controls exclusively to the command menus, as there was no mouse control on a Famicom. That's why games like Phoenix Wright are still built around the command menus. They are command-style adventures, a variant of the point & click adventure. Games like 999 and Last Cry of the Banshee, those are novel games, where you read a novel and occasionally make a context-specific choice, as opposed to a menu-specific command like "talk" or "use".

"One dumbbell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumbbell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!" - The Valley of Fear

I'm currently watching AestheticGamer play one: Scratches. It overall seems good, very nice and atmospherically scary - except, once again, the dang house is too dark. (Though that can be altered in the options, he simply chooses to keep it dark. If he prefers it that way, fine.) I don't mind point-and-click games myself. The only part I hate, is if I have to click multiple times and jump through hoops to get to places. Say, having to turn and click three times to go down semi-spiral staircases. Or, in AA's case, clicking all over creation, to get somewhere.

Used to play them a lot, a lot less now. Mostly third-person though. Broken Sword, Monkey Island, mostly older games. As for more recent games, Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes series is not without its share of problems, but I do enjoy them. Oh, and not recent, but I did only get into Gabriel Knight one or two years ago, and quite liked them for their storytelling and atmosphere.

I do have a pet-peeve about people always calling _every_ Japanese adventure game visual novels. Most Japanese adventure games are actually variants of point and click adventures. People who have played games like Maniac Mansion should know the command menu right? With commands as "Use", "Talk", "Open" etcetera? When they made adventures for consoles (with controllers), they simply moved the controls exclusively to the command menus, as there was no mouse control on a Famicom. That's why games like Phoenix Wright are still built around the command menus. They are command-style adventures, a variant of the point & click adventure. Games like 999 and Last Cry of the Banshee, those are novel games, where you read a novel and occasionally make a context-specific choice, as opposed to a menu-specific command like "talk" or "use".

That's true. A ton of adventure games use the AA kind of interaction system. Modern versions of those systems make up the majority of modern 3rd person point and click games and they're incorporated into 1st person ones as well. The conversation and Interaction systems of games like The Journeyman Project 3 and the Tex Murphy series are very similar to AA mechanics. I've always looked at AA as both a visual novel and as a point-and-click adventure game because it has elements of both in it. Professor Layton games would definitely be point and click games, it's literally just walking around town and solving puzzles. So as you point out the makeup of the genre still is widespread. It's a shame that the genre itself has died a bit. Although 3rd person adventure games are being kickstarted all the time and first-person adventure games have possibly formed a bit of the "exploring/walking simulator" games that are very popular today, so maybe its on its way back.

I own all of the Gabriel Knight games but I haven't played them yet. I have so many games (especially old point and click games because they're always like 50 cents at garage sales and thrift stores) that there are adventure games I've purchased years ago that I still haven't played yet. Someday I'll get around to them. Someday.

CatMuto wrote:

I'm currently watching AestheticGamer play one: Scratches. It overall seems good, very nice and atmospherically scary - except, once again, the dang house is too dark. (Though that can be altered in the options, he simply chooses to keep it dark. If he prefers it that way, fine.) I don't mind point-and-click games myself. The only part I hate, is if I have to click multiple times and jump through hoops to get to places. Say, having to turn and click three times to go down semi-spiral staircases. Or, in AA's case, clicking all over creation, to get somewhere.

C-A

Scratches is pretty good. I enjoyed it but I remember it being a little frustrating because often it didn't give you a clue as to what to do next so every time you think you changed something you'd have to walk around the whole house and estate before finding the new event. (I generally like being able to explore and solve puzzles by myself in these games but there's a point where you want to give the player a little clue as to the general vicinity as to what will happen next.) I generally preferred the Dark Fall games to Scratches; while Dark Fall is much less scary (it borderline isn't - just eerie) and has extremely outdated graphics, I think it's a better game and has a more interesting and developed plot. But I enjoyed my time with Scratches.

I agree about the clicking getting tiresome after a while - especially if you have to keep going from one place to another. One thing that the Myst games do (that few others do for some reason) is include what they call "Zip Mode" which if enabled drastically cuts the amount of nodes you have to go through and can take you in 1 click what might take you 10 clicks normally. Sure you can miss out on things but since you can turn it on or off at your leisure I think most who use it already know what they're doing at that point.

I own all of the Gabriel Knight games but I haven't played them yet. I have so many games (especially old point and click games because they're always like 50 cents at garage sales and thrift stores) that there are adventure games I've purchased years ago that I still haven't played yet. Someday I'll get around to them. Someday.

I have the same with the Tex Murphy games. All on GOG, but never really get started on them. As for GK, there's also a 20th Anniversary remake of the first game. The new 3D graphics don't look as good as the original graphics/style, in my opinion, but overall, it does streamline the experience for the better, for example with some reworked puzzles. Probably the easiest way to start the series. I loved GK2's story, but this one is an interactive movie P&C adventure, and can feel a bit tedious at time because of the acting and occasional odd puzzles. GK3 has...aged really badly.

On first/third person: I don't really like playing first person games anyway, no matter the genre. Some games offer both styles (Frogwares' Holmes games for example), and I always go for third.

I probably played Broken Sword (1) most often. I think I played it on PC, iOS, GBA, Wii... The "recent" Broken Sword 5 was pretty okay too, I thought!

"One dumbbell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumbbell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!" - The Valley of Fear

Scratches is pretty good. I enjoyed it but I remember it being a little frustrating because often it didn't give you a clue as to what to do next so every time you think you changed something you'd have to walk around the whole house and estate before finding the new event.

Yeah, despite the LP not being done, I decided to just read spoilers up. And that game is really mean. You need to click everything, multiple times, because sometimes you pick something up and only realize later that you were supposed to pick a second thing up, but you didn't notice. Or that stupid rock you have to pick up. The atmosphere of the game is really good, though. I know I wouldn't want to play the game, the music in the basement (or when it LACKS music) is enough to make me tense up.

I own all of the Gabriel Knight games but I haven't played them yet. I have so many games (especially old point and click games because they're always like 50 cents at garage sales and thrift stores) that there are adventure games I've purchased years ago that I still haven't played yet. Someday I'll get around to them. Someday.

I have the same with the Tex Murphy games. All on GOG, but never really get started on them. As for GK, there's also a 20th Anniversary remake of the first game. The new 3D graphics don't look as good as the original graphics/style, in my opinion, but overall, it does streamline the experience for the better, for example with some reworked puzzles. Probably the easiest way to start the series. I loved GK2's story, but this one is an interactive movie P&C adventure, and can feel a bit tedious at time because of the acting and occasional odd puzzles. GK3 has...aged really badly.

On first/third person: I don't really like playing first person games anyway, no matter the genre. Some games offer both styles (Frogwares' Holmes games for example), and I always go for third.

I probably played Broken Sword (1) most often. I think I played it on PC, iOS, GBA, Wii... The "recent" Broken Sword 5 was pretty okay too, I thought!

I generally like Tex Murphy, although I certainly don't like all of it. I think Mean Streets is great. It's a really bizarre mix of random genres in a way which doesn't really happen anymore. You travel around San Francisco in a flight simulator, and when you land at a building you enter into an AA "Investigation" style of conversation game where you ask the witness questions about witnesses - only unlike AA you type it in by hand which is always fun. Occasionally you have to fight your way through bad guys in a kind of side-scroller shooter which is okay but not great. What I really like about it is that it makes you feel like a real detective since you have to take real notes about addresses and names and you fly around in real time so if you're into that kind of thing it's fantastic despite its age. (Also, you have a secretary you can call up who will do research for you AND FAX IT TO YOU. IN THE 2030's. Amazing.) I loved it. However, a lot of people find it outdated and Tex Murphy: Overseer is basically a remake so you can always skip it but I'd recommend trying it out first.

Martian Memorandum is awful in my opinion; the story doesn't grab me and I don't like the controls. It also lets you screw up, not pick up a certain item, and then play for like 4 more hours until you realize you needed it and you're not allowed to go back (and there's an awful maze later on in the game as well). Under a Killing Moon is decent and I like the FMV but I'm not as big on the humor in this game. The Pandora Directive is great though, Overseer is good as well and I enjoyed Tesla Effect so overall I enjoy the series; only the 2nd and 3rd installments are a little iffy for me.

I considered buying the new version of GK1 but I already own a copy of GK1 and I also heard the new version doesn't have Tim Curry doing his voice, which I've heard is a staple of the series. I'll probably try it soon. I played the original Broken Sword 1 and loved it but haven't gotten around to the other yet.

I generally like first-person just because I tend to like adventure games that use more environment puzzles and less conversation puzzles (I'm talking specifically about Myst-style puzzles where it doesn't use inventory items but rather you have puzzles in the world that you need to work out [sometimes with a pencil and paper] and not so much the "combine stick and line to make fishing rope then use fishing rope on lake" kind of puzzles) although I still greatly enjoy 3rd person games as well. I think 1st person games are great for adventure games where the location and immersion is the main focus (ex. in Myst there are characters but the real star of the show is the island and how you can explore it) but aren't good at character interaction. Characters in first-person adventure games will shout monologues at you without you talking at all. For some games this works (like Myst - I can't believe I'm bringing it up again - where you are literally meant to be playing yourself) but other games try and establish the player's role as a specific character (for instance Gage Blackwood in The Journeyman Project) which doesn't work because you can't have an interesting character who you never see and never hear. I don't think any strictly first-person adventure game has a really well-developed player character because of this. Tex Murphy is a good example of blending styles to get around this. You do all the investigating in 1st person but he monologues as you look around like you're reading a crime novel and then when he interacts with someone it suddenly goes into FMV mode and you're playing an interactive movie.

I also greatly enjoy 3rd person games, too, and 3rd person games are able to do character interaction really well; in fact, in a lot of them interacting with NPCs is the main focus of the game. Only reason 3rd person games take a 2nd place in my adventure game love is because I can sometimes get bored of having to watch my character walk around the environment after I click (some games let you skip that which is great) and I sometimes get tired of the long conversations and "use blank on blank" puzzles mostly just because I'm bad at them haha. But I still love 3rd person adventure games too. I've been meaning to play all the classic Lucasarts games soon. I haven't tried Monkey Island yet but I recently finished Sam and Max Hit the Road and that was fun so I'm sure I'll get to it someday.

Right now I'm caught up in Uru: Complete Chronicles as well as Dual Destinies but once I'm done with those I may start with Gabriel Knight 1 because it's sat on my shelf for years and talking about it has gotten me in the mood.

CatMuto wrote:

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Scratches is pretty good. I enjoyed it but I remember it being a little frustrating because often it didn't give you a clue as to what to do next so every time you think you changed something you'd have to walk around the whole house and estate before finding the new event.

Yeah, despite the LP not being done, I decided to just read spoilers up. And that game is really mean. You need to click everything, multiple times, because sometimes you pick something up and only realize later that you were supposed to pick a second thing up, but you didn't notice. Or that stupid rock you have to pick up. The atmosphere of the game is really good, though. I know I wouldn't want to play the game, the music in the basement (or when it LACKS music) is enough to make me tense up.

C-A

Yeah I remember the first couple hours of that game was great and really creepy, especially the first couple nights with the dreams and going into the basement and the mask appearing in places. Something about hidden rooms in houses really freaks me out. After that though I began to get a little bored with the story, I think. It's been years so I don't really remember. I remember the little "expansion" Scratches: Last Visit wasn't very good and I remember feeling like it was almost entirely focused on trying to explain the events of the main game in a non-supernatural context which I feel is unnecessary.

Well, Scratches does explain things in the 'Last Visit' (and invalidates the Secret Ending), but it never flat out says this and that never happened. They prove that things can be explained with regular things (like Mrs Blackwood's pains during pregnancy), but never say the supernatural stuff isn't real. It could be, it couldn't be, they just admit that supernatural stuff can be explained. (Which is true, if one goes to think back in the past and how people considered something was a curse - like the Pharao's Curse when opening up tombs, revealed to be nothing but bacteria that were set free after being sealed up for so long) And the game does take place in... um, 1980, I guess? 1970? Have to say, I like the old rotary phone.

But it's still good at getting the creepy atmosphere across, especially if nothing happens. I mean, AestheticGamer did jump a bit during the scene of checking out the furnace during the 2nd night post-nightmare, but I didn't. Probably because I expected something to cross my vision there, so it didn't get me. Still, good at making things creepy. Now, if only the damn thing was better lit. I feel like something is scarier when it happens in a well-lit area, rather than a semi-dark or dark one. I mean, with the dark one, you figure something will jump out. In a light area, it's scarier, because you didn't expect it.

Well, Scratches does explain things in the 'Last Visit' (and invalidates the Secret Ending), but it never flat out says this and that never happened. They prove that things can be explained with regular things (like Mrs Blackwood's pains during pregnancy), but never say the supernatural stuff isn't real. It could be, it couldn't be, they just admit that supernatural stuff can be explained. (Which is true, if one goes to think back in the past and how people considered something was a curse - like the Pharao's Curse when opening up tombs, revealed to be nothing but bacteria that were set free after being sealed up for so long) And the game does take place in... um, 1980, I guess? 1970? Have to say, I like the old rotary phone.

But it's still good at getting the creepy atmosphere across, especially if nothing happens. I mean, AestheticGamer did jump a bit during the scene of checking out the furnace during the 2nd night post-nightmare, but I didn't. Probably because I expected something to cross my vision there, so it didn't get me. Still, good at making things creepy. Now, if only the damn thing was better lit. I feel like something is scarier when it happens in a well-lit area, rather than a semi-dark or dark one. I mean, with the dark one, you figure something will jump out. In a light area, it's scarier, because you didn't expect it.

C-A

That's good, thanks for reminding me; I haven't played it in years so it was all fuzzy. When it comes to this kind of story I almost prefer it when it IS indeed supernatural rather than "explainable" but I have nothing against making it ambiguous. There's no doubt about it that scratches is really good ambience-wise, even if there's a lot of pixel-hunting in the game.

Actually, can anyone recommend any other horror/eerie/supernatural point and click games? I'm always looking for some and it's hard to find (So far I've played all 3 Dark Falls, both Lost Crowns, Scratches, Barrow Hill, and Rhiannon. I'd love to find more to play.

I'm personally a fan of the Nancy Drew series. Some of them were pretty crappy (e.g. Ransom of the Seven Ships), but others were actually really good (e.g. Secret of Shadow Ranch, and The Deadly Device).

I'm personally a fan of the Nancy Drew series. Some of them were pretty crappy (e.g. Ransom of the Seven Ships), but others were actually really good (e.g. Secret of Shadow Ranch, and The Deadly Device).

I never read the books as a child but I've actually heard good things about the Nancy Drew games, although my understanding is that some of them are more hidden object games than point and click puzzle solving games.

There are so many low-budget adventure games out there, some great and some awful, but there's such a huge number of them in the 90's and 2000's that I never run out of things to buy at Garage sales. I actually got into The X-Files because of the X-Files point and click game, which was pretty cool as it used all photographs from the sets and featured Scully and Mulder interacting with the main character through FMV sequences. It was really similar to Tex Murphy in terms of presentation, although to be honest it wasn't that great as an actual adventure game, so in terms of overall gameplay quality Tex Murphy runs out.

One of the weirdest point-and-click games out there are the Capri series: Two games, one called "A Quiet Weekend in Capri" and one called "Anacapri: The Dream". The developers took photographs all over the island of Capri - I'm talking pretty much the WHOLE Island, even inside a lot of people's houses, (I think they got some grant from Capri's Tourism department or something). So these games have basically the entire island to walk around in, and while the photos aren't always great it's so cool to spend hours just exploring. There are "story modes" which are ridiculous and low-budget to the point of not being enjoyable (they have to do with supernatural elements and a lot of it is literally microsoft paint-created badly drawn and photoshoped images on top of the scenic photos, and there's no FMV, so you just get weird images of turtles talking at you (also, they were localized in English with possibly the worst dubbing I have ever heard. Luckily the game has a mode with Italian text and English subtitles, which is much better). The cool thing, though, is that there's another mode called "tourism mode" or something along those lines, where you don't have any story and just walk around - rather than give you bs story or gameplay details, the people you meet will tell you trivia about the island, the culture, or their lives in general. At certain points I believe you can also click to get little informational videos, which is pretty cool. So they're terrible adventure games but they're very cool "virtual vacation/mildly instructional/I have fun getting lost because of all the different places I can go" games.

Of the Nancy Drew series, I only played Shadow at the Water's Edge, which was meh. The setting in Japan (with a J-Horror twist) was sorta interesting, in the 'this is definitely how foreigners imagine Japan to be' kind of way, complete with one of the most hilarious train maps ever (it'd be like putting NY next to San Fransisco. Times twenty.) But the puzzles were pretty boring and seldom woven naturally into the story.

Which is something the Frogwares Holmes games often have. They've been doing better the last two games, but for some reason, EVERYONE in those games use logic puzzles to lock stuff up. In Victorian London. People often complain about wacky puzzles in Monkey Island (they are wacky, I admit), but at least those puzzles make sense within the universe of the games. But why would a poor worker (or basically everyone) in Victorian London use a safe box with a logic puzzle to lock up some letters?!

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I generally like first-person just because I tend to like adventure games that use more environment puzzles and less conversation puzzles (I'm talking specifically about Myst-style puzzles where it doesn't use inventory items but rather you have puzzles in the world that you need to work out [sometimes with a pencil and paper] and not so much the "combine stick and line to make fishing rope then use fishing rope on lake" kind of puzzles) although I still greatly enjoy 3rd person games as well. I think 1st person games are great for adventure games where the location and immersion is the main focus (ex. in Myst there are characters but the real star of the show is the island and how you can explore it) but aren't good at character interaction. Characters in first-person adventure games will shout monologues at you without you talking at all. For some games this works (like Myst - I can't believe I'm bringing it up again - where you are literally meant to be playing yourself) but other games try and establish the player's role as a specific character (for instance Gage Blackwood in The Journeyman Project) which doesn't work because you can't have an interesting character who you never see and never hear. I don't think any strictly first-person adventure game has a really well-developed player character because of this. Tex Murphy is a good example of blending styles to get around this. You do all the investigating in 1st person but he monologues as you look around like you're reading a crime novel and then when he interacts with someone it suddenly goes into FMV mode and you're playing an interactive movie.

I on the other hand am definitely more of an inventory/conversation puzzle type of guy. I think part of it is because I often feel that environment puzzles are kinda... too abstract? I like my puzzles to be a bit more clearer, I guess.

"One dumbbell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumbbell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!" - The Valley of Fear

I'm personally a fan of the Nancy Drew series. Some of them were pretty crappy (e.g. Ransom of the Seven Ships), but others were actually really good (e.g. Secret of Shadow Ranch, and The Deadly Device).

I never read the books as a child but I've actually heard good things about the Nancy Drew games, although my understanding is that some of them are more hidden object games than point and click puzzle solving games.

There were a couple of them that were designed specifically to be hidden object games, but for the most part, they're definitely more puzzle solving games. (Of course, part of the reason I hated Ransom of the Seven Ships so much was because the puzzles were mostly there for the sake of having puzzles, and the only people on the island are you, your friend who's been helpful to you since nearly the beginning of the series, and one other person. Guess which one the bad guy is.)

Day of The Tentacle Remastered's release is later this month. Anybody interested in that? I played the original game and thought it was a very clever, funny game (as expected from LucasArts at the time). Might pick it up at some later date, though I'm not really interested in it right now (IIRC, you also get to play the original Maniac Mansion from within DoTT).

Oh, that reminds me: anybody who played Scooby Doo! Classic Creep Capers on the GBC? That was actually a very inspired Scooby Doo P&C adventure following a Maniac Mansion formula. I picked it up a while ago and was really impressed with how fun it was. The only problem is that it's really, REALLY short.

"One dumbbell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumbbell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!" - The Valley of Fear

I'm personally a fan of the Nancy Drew series. Some of them were pretty crappy (e.g. Ransom of the Seven Ships), but others were actually really good (e.g. Secret of Shadow Ranch, and The Deadly Device).

Day of The Tentacle Remastered's release is later this month. Anybody interested in that? I played the original game and thought it was a very clever, funny game (as expected from LucasArts at the time). Might pick it up at some later date, though I'm not really interested in it right now (IIRC, you also get to play the original Maniac Mansion from within DoTT).

Oh, that reminds me: anybody who played Scooby Doo! Classic Creep Capers on the GBC? That was actually a very inspired Scooby Doo P&C adventure following a Maniac Mansion formula. I picked it up a while ago and was really impressed with how fun it was. The only problem is that it's really, REALLY short.

I haven't had the chance to play Maniac Mansion or Day of the Tentacle yet, but it's on my "Lucasarts list" since I played Sam & Max Hit the Road and am now in the middle of Grim Fandango which is awesome. For anyone who hasn't played it the remastered version is cheap on Steam and GOG so I suggest those who like point and clicks check it out. I'm on Year 2 (AKA the film noir year) but I'm really enjoying it. I'll probably pick up Day of the Tentacle but I probably won't get around to playing it for a while.

I haven't played Scooby Doo but I'm all too familiar with the terrible feeling of loving an adventure game and realizing it's only a couple of hours long. This is the main problem I have with some more recent adventure games, as well as "reimaginings" of the point and click genre like Gone Home (AKA the "walking simulators" that everyone is either upset about or praising like there's no tomorrow). I really like what I hear coming from games like Gone Home, Firewatch, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, etc. but they all take like 5 hours max to complete it, and while I don't in any way dislike the "walking simulator" genre, my feeling is that if you aren't going to have puzzles or something along those lines than there needs to be enough plot and dialogue to fill in the 10 or so hours that a traditional adventure game will give you. Either that or make the games cheaper; I know that the quality of the gaming experience doesn't equate with the amount of money spent but on the other hand if Gone Home is $20 and for $20 I can also get Cyan's complete catalogue, Tex Murphy 1-5, the entire Broken Sword series, etc. then it doesn't make me want to buy it. On the other hand, indie games cost money and 20 is reasonable so I shouldn't complain. (But I will buy it on sale!)

Also, it's not a point-and-click, it's more of a text adventure along the lines of Zork (but it's not really that either) - but has anyone played Uplink? It's a great hacking game in which the whole game takes place on a fake desktop. You start out changing documents, breaking into banks, looking up information, etc. but eventually you end up having to stop a virus that's threatening to wipe out the internet or something crazy like that. I'm not sure how popular it was, but it's on GOG for 75% ($1.49) for the next couple of days (it's normally $6 on GOG but it's $10 on steam for some reason). I do remember a fun fact is that a very very slightly edited version of the demo was included on one of the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex DVDs - I think they basically changed an icon in the game to the Laughing Man logo and that was it. It didn't really have anything else to do with GitS. But yeah, I totally recommend it. It's addictive trying to move software onto some corporate network while your sensors tell you that they're onto you and are tracing you. Here's some video - I couldn't find a non Let's Play version so I'd just ignore/mute the talking if you don't want spoilers.

I haven't had the chance to play Maniac Mansion or Day of the Tentacle yet, but it's on my "Lucasarts list" since I played Sam & Max Hit the Road and am now in the middle of Grim Fandango which is awesome. For anyone who hasn't played it the remastered version is cheap on Steam and GOG so I suggest those who like point and clicks check it out. I'm on Year 2 (AKA the film noir year) but I'm really enjoying it. I'll probably pick up Day of the Tentacle but I probably won't get around to playing it for a while.

Grim Fandango is fantastic. I got it when it was originally released (still got the oversized PC game box and the discs!) and play it once every couple of years. I also bought the Remastered version when it was released, but never finished that: the game once crashed on me after I had finished year 3 in one go, and didn't feel like doing it all again ^^'

Year 2 of GF in particular is a great example of doing puzzle design in adventure games. At the start of the chapter, you're told a simple goal (get out of Rubacava), and the subgoals and afterwards, it's basically free-roaming, as you can tackle on all of the subgoals in your own order. If you can't figure out a puzzle, you can go try another subgoal for a while. The way some of the hints necessary to solve a certain late puzzle is also brilliant.

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I can also get Cyan's complete catalogue

Which reminds me, I still haven't finished Atlantis, even though I've owned the game for /a fairly large part/ of my life.

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Also, it's not a point-and-click, it's more of a text adventure along the lines of Zork (but it's not really that either) - but has anyone played Uplink? It's a great hacking game in which the whole game takes place on a fake desktop. You start out changing documents, breaking into banks, looking up information, etc. but eventually you end up having to stop a virus that's threatening to wipe out the internet or something crazy like that. I'm not sure how popular it was, but it's on GOG for 75% ($1.49) for the next couple of days (it's normally $6 on GOG but it's $10 on steam for some reason).

That does sound interesting. I love adventure games that emulate real (virtual) environments for gameplay. On (Japanese) iOS, there's the free adventure Majiyami Kanojo, which has a brilliant first half. You're playing the very, very jealous girlfriend who got hold of her boyfriends smartphone, and you go through his mail and chat applications to find out if he's cheating on you. The boyfriend's smartphone home screen is shown on your own smartphone, so it's really like you're going through his phone looking for secrets (Here's a Japanese LP, where you can see a bit of the first half).

"One dumbbell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumbbell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!" - The Valley of Fear

Which reminds me, I still haven't finished Atlantis, even though I've owned the game for /a fairly large part/ of my life.

Actually I was talking about Cyan, Inc (Also known as Cyan Worlds) who created all the Myst games (as well as some children's edutatinment games) which offer probably around 100 hours of gameplay combined and can be bought for $20 on GOG and Steam. (Although they are making a new game called Obduction which looks awesome). Since they never made any other games, are you thinking of a different Cyan? And by Atlantis, do you mean one of the Atlantis first-person adventure games (Atlantis: The Lost Tales, Beyond Atlantis, Atlantis III: The New World, etc.)? I always jump at the opportunity to potentially find out about new adventure games!

And while the subject matter of that smartphone game isn't neccesarily subject matter I'm super interested in, I absolutely love the idea of a smartphone game which gives you a smartphone interface. That's awesome. There's another PC game out called Her Story which does this a bit too, as the game is played through a windows 95-esque desktop and you're looking over police footage of a witness being interviewed (I was a bit disappointed though that you didn't do more stuff in that environment, like use old software to research, examine audio, etc. Big missed opportunity in my opinion).

Oops, my mistake, I was thinking of Cryo (of the Atlantis games). Got them mixed up in my head (four letters, both with a C and Y, obviously almost the same :P).

"One dumbbell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumbbell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!" - The Valley of Fear

I remember the Myst series. I played it once, Riven if my memory is right on which of the series of Myst I played. But have I beaten it? I don't remember. I think that was the only Point and click adventure game I ever touched.

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I remember the Myst series. I played it once, Riven if my memory is right on which of the series of Myst I played. But have I beaten it? I don't remember. I think that was the only Point and click adventure game I ever touched.

Riven is in the running for my favorite game of all time (although no game will ever actually fill that - I have like 10 and I can never decide which are better than others). Not only is it astoundingly beautiful visually, but so far it's the only real first person point and click game where every single puzzle and clue feels like something that has a real purpose in the world. I love Myst but Myst Island is just a mishmash of random stuff. We've got a spaceship, Roman columns, a sunken ship, etc. Every clue, puzzle, item, location, etc. in Riven has an in-world purpose (within reason - it is still an adventure game after all, but compared to other adventure games it feels incredibly natural). The acting is also really good for an FMV game and you're pretty much free to explore in any way you want - you can solve puzzles in the order that you wish, and the cutscenes can play out differently based on this. The only problem is that it's a real pain to get working - I think the GOG version works pretty well, although it's the CD-ROM version rather than the DVD-ROM version, so the graphics are a little more compressed.

There's another PC game out called Her Story which does this a bit too, as the game is played through a windows 95-esque desktop and you're looking over police footage of a witness being interviewed (I was a bit disappointed though that you didn't do more stuff in that environment, like use old software to research, examine audio, etc. Big missed opportunity in my opinion).

I played that one, and it definitely had a great gimmick. What I loved about that game was that basically everyone will have a different experience: the path to the 'ending' is non-linear and is completely dependent on whatever the player starts looking for. I might see footage A and B first, which leads to first theory X, but another person might see footage C and D first, and arrive at theory Y.

"One dumbbell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumbbell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!" - The Valley of Fear

First point and click I played was Syberia 10 or 12 years ago : I had bought the boxset with both episodes while knowing literally nothing about the series and the genre, I just had seen a review in a TV magazine and loved the vibe of the screenshots and that was it. It was my first exposure to realistic graphics (for the time of course), and the premise of starting in a remote french mountain village (the kind of setting I was extremely familiar with) made the whole thing insanely immersive. There was no shooting, no fantasy, no SF, barely any action, but that's precisely why it was so easy to get into the universe. That's one thing I will always love about most point and click I played : their atmosphere. It's precisely because they're most of the time down to earth and rely a lot on average Joe type characters and everyday items that they're so damn immersive!

Actually,the genre is rather popular with kids,apparently,such as Club Penguin and Poptropica. Club Penguin isn't very fun,as you just buy clothes and try to be cool. There's barely any quests,and most of the stuff insane is only available to members anyway.

Poptropica is...more of a point and click game,but it definitely has a few problems. If those could be fixed,I'd say I would let my kid play it.

I used to go the library a lot when I was little and I didn't even check out books, I only went to use the computers. The computers only had point a click adventure games on them so I always played those. The one I remember most was one about some blue creatures living on a island and some pirates took over? That's all I remember from that game. Only other things on the computers was the Internet and activity centers. The one at my library was Magic School Bus from what I remember.

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